Drones Outpacing Rules as Popularity Soars in New York
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
“They started jumping for it,” he said.
“I started taunting them, bringing it down and then taking it up.
They wouldn’t leave until their mom dragged them away.”
The current rules in Denmark (which I believe to be slightly too strict).
* No flying within 150m of city areas
* No flying within 150m of larger roads
* Maximum flying height 100m
* No flying above crowded areas (including vacation houses etc)
* No flying within 5 km of airports
* No flying within 8 km of military airports
* No flying over specially protected areas (think wildlife preserves)
* Special care must be taken not to endanger lives and property
With drones you better realize quickly you do not have the right to be in someone else's private airspace. This should be prosecuted like trespassing. The problem is, just like people who set off fireworks weeks before and after holidays "just because they can and screw everyone else" or point lasers at airplanes, that laws aren't going to matter to them, they are going to do whatever they want to do.
At the same time, the law, and the Supreme Court, recognized that a landowner had property rights in the lower reaches of the airspace above their property. The law, in balancing the public interest in using the airspace for air navigation against the landowner's rights, declared that a landowner owns only so much of the airspace above their property as they may reasonably use in connection with their enjoyment of the underlying land.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights
[Edit] Completely missed your last sentence when commenting! I couldn't find any cases where someone went to court over someone violating their airspace besides people arguing over airport flight paths.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/05/30/317074394/drone-wa...
The Supreme Court has found flight below 90' trespass, but did not rule on where navigable airspace begins. (In this specific case somewhere above 83').
Also note that while you can build to significant heights in the airspace above your property; if the FAA finds your structure to be a hazard to air navigation you will find it near impossible to get liability insurance. Often cell towers are built just short of 200' AGL so a determination doesn't have to be made under FAR77.
Again, it's a complex issue and I'm speaking generally about (FAA defined) rural areas. Urban areas have different rules and standards.
I'd like one that can possibly send back real time video, also maybe "hackable"? No need for Hellfires though ... I promise to be good and fly it in unpopulated areas.
3 or 4 times the price is the DJI Phantom 2 range, which are great, easy to use. Carries a GoPro or its own camera. A little more dangerous but still not too scary. Not so hackable, as far as I know.
It's very easy to build your own, very powerful machine from parts using e.g the Pixhawk controller. Also you can buy ready to fly machines from e.g. 3D Robotics. Great fun. As dangerous as you want to make it. Take care!